Donald Trump, unable to front a half billion dollars to pay off his recent bank fraud judgment, now effectively has liens placed on his massive, forested estate north of New York City, according to public records and several court clerks who spoke to The Daily Beast on Thursday.
Documents show that New York Attorney General Letitia James has started preparing to seize his family’s hallowed grounds at Seven Springs, the billionaire tycoon’s Bruce-Wayne-like mansion surrounded by 212 acres of dense woods and rolling hills.
James quietly filed judgments in Westchester County on March 6 against the former president, his eldest sons Don Jr. and Eric, and several of their companies—just as they unsuccessfully tried to stall the case.
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The Trumps and some of their top executives lost a three-month bank fraud trial in New York City, with Justice Arthur F. Engoron concluding they routinely lied about the tycoon’s wealth and ordering them to pay $464 million.
Although Trump is appealing the case, in recent days he has made clear in court filings that he is unable to find a surety company willing to issue a bond that would halt that judgment before a March 25 deadline, at which point the AG could start seizing their assets by force.
But Westchester County records show that James isn’t waiting to position law enforcement agencies to grab at his extensive Monopoly board of properties. The AG’s Office officially filed the judgment in Westchester at 9:03 a.m. on Wednesday, March 6, according to county records.
Two employees at the clerk’s office explained that the move effectively means that the AG has placed liens on all properties that belong to Trump, Don Jr., Eric, the Trump Organization, and two of their other listed corporate entities.
The “blanket lien” now in place means that if Trump tries to sell any property in Westchester County, a title search will reveal that there is a half billion dollar judgment hanging over his head.
Seven Springs was one of several real estate ventures that factored into the AG’s bank fraud case against the former president. For years, Trump failed in his attempts to develop the property into a luxury golf course and slice up the land into expensive mansions for sale. The property—which is filled with red oaks, sugar maples, and huckleberry bushes—spans three towns, and residents in each one successfully blocked his plans to bulldoze the forests there to achieve his dream.
In the end, Trump opted to donate much of the land to conservation. But investigators said he snagged an unfairly large charitable tax write-off by overestimating the value of the land.
